Corel® Painter® - Moving paint in Watercolor.

Corel® Painter® - Moving paint in Watercolor. By Cher Pendarvis

Pink Orchid by Cher Pendarvis

Painter offers three kinds of watercolor paint media: Digital Watercolor, Watercolor and Real Watercolor. Each is rich and useful. This tip focuses on Watercolor. With Painter’s Watercolor brushes you can enjoy a wide variety of transparent paint looks, from soft washes to more grainy strokes, to wet-into-wet dripping paint, and more. With the Brush Controls, Water panel, you can control the attributes of the Watercolor brushes, including the direction the paint moves on your image, as shown in my Pink Orchid study above. In this tip we will explore two of the Watercolor brushes and learn how to adjust the movement of the wet paint. 1. Setting up. Begin by opening a new file. Choose File > New and in the New dialog box, set up a file that measures 600 x 600 pixels. Next, choose a blue color in the Color panel. If the Color panel is not open, choose Window > Color Panels > Color to open it, and click the Hue ring and Saturation/Value triangle to choose a color.

The New dialog box set up

Choosing a blue in the Color panel

2. Choosing brushes and making practice strokes. First, explore two default Watercolor brushes to see the different strokes they paint. When you touch a Watercolor brush to the image, a Watercolor media layer appears in the Layers panel to hold the paint. Choose the Soft Wash variant of Watercolor in the Brush Selector Bar. Before painting—for the best quality—enable Accurate Diffusion. Choose Window > Brush Control Panels > Water, and enable the Accurate Diffusion checkbox. Now make a practice stroke.

The Water panel showing settings for the Soft Bristle. Accurate Diffusion is enabled.

Next, choose the Runny Wash Bristle variant of Watercolor. As you did above for the best quality brushstrokes, enable Accurate Diffusion. ChooseWindow > Brush Control Panels > Water, and enable the Accurate Diffusion checkbox. Now make a practice stroke with this brush. While still a watery brush, Soft Bristle has less Wetness, and shows some of the bristle hair marks from the brush. The Runny Wash Bristle is a wetter brush with a higher Wetness value.

Two practice strokes, the Soft Bristle (top) and the Runny Wash Bristle (bottom)

3. Experimenting with Wind Force. As you can see in the Water panel for the Soft Bristle brush, Wind Force is not enabled for the Soft Bristle variant. Choose the Runny Wash Bristle, and take a look at the Water panel settings. The Wind Angle is set to 270° and the Wind Force is set to 23%. The Wind Force causes the pigment to move on the Watercolor layer. The default Wind Angle of 270° lets the paint run down the image.

For the default Runny Wash Bristle, Wind Force is set to 23%, which causes the pigment to move on the Watercolor layer

Now, increase the Wind Force to at least 80% (I set the slider to 81%.) Make another brush stroke, and notice how the paint spreads out farther. The spread of the paint is also affected by the tilt on your stylus as you paint. The stroke will be a bit narrower if you hold the stylus upright.

4. Experimenting with Wind Angle. The Wind Angle determines the direction that the paint will flow on the Watercolor layer. The default angle is 270° which causes the paint to flow down. In the Water panel, set the Wind Angle to 90°. Make a practice stroke. You will see the paint flow up the image, rather than down, as it did at 270°. Continue to experiment with the Wind Force and Wind Angle.

Stroke painted with the Runny Wash Bristle with Wind Direction set to 90°